Poems from "Outdoor Life in Shoreland Terrain" translated from Swedish by Gabriella BerggrenForewordTo lay a thing in the mossHumanTheir kneesThe age of human assuranceThe cigarettesDon't go outWhere from?ForewordI wish to approach this with good humour under various headings. For good humour is the only thing that can keep a person going, together with his fear that everything will go wrong. In other words, to come to grips with the world to the best of my ability without being afraid, without picking at my food. It ought to be possible to understand things in an entirely different way; through the slow mystery of breathing in and out, (almost breathlessly) like when you wander in a pine forest in severe cold and the fragrance nonetheless overpowers you. You have to take it calmly and breathe with even breaths even though you nearly always get too much of everything, or too little, but never just the right amount of anything, because there is no such thing; and to remember that you never get it on trial, and won't have the chance to change your mind, simply because it's what you subsist on. It's not a matter of accumulating knowledge, at least not the kind of knowledge that you can eat, it's more about making the knowledge yourself out of a matter that always appears willing to lend itself to any knowledge, any system, concept or conglomeration whatsoever, be it vertical or horizontal. But the real problem is that even this shapelessness is only apparent and that life really does have a glass bead game built into it somewhere and that you can hear it play from time to time. This of course only happens sometimes, and never because you have understood something, but only because you have managed in some way to copy the melody, always unintentionally.To lay a thing in the mossSometimes when you walk in a forest. Sometimes when you walk in a forest you bend down. Towards the ground and lay a thing there. You lay it there in a nice place in the moss. It is like an exercise, you practise leaving things in forests letting someone else take care of them. It's not rubbish you leave. You leave a part of yourself. You had already realised that. A mitten is a part of yourself, but also doll or sandwich. Other things can also be parts. Something that you once owned l ies on the ground in the forest when you leave, something you would have needed that you cannot do without, a part of life or a large part. And moss will grow on it, and oblivion will take it. And forest will grow and machines will come. And forest will fall, and moss will be torn to shreds and the country will get export income and nothing will be left. In a hundred years new forest will grow and all will be gone and forgotten.

Man

Man can become everything and do everything Go into every house and say all names he has

Their kneesSometimes when you look at people it may strike you that their noses are much too big. Or that their knees at close range l ook like old faces, as if they had grown out of their former lives.The age of human assuranceThe age of human assurance ended around 1840. That was when the bodies could no longer contain their souls. A fault had appeared, the people woke up early in the morning and looked round the room, set their feet on the cold splintery wooden floors and walked to the windows. It was nicer outside in those days, you saw leaves mostly. There were sooty mines and ironworks, but not like now a blackness over everything. Outside the windows stood an innocent dawn, a blessing if you like, or a reminder of the old blessing of waking and being in it.It was then, 1840 in the autumn, at the nicest time, that the bodies couldn't contain their souls any more. The frost was there like a hand brushed over the grass. The souls shrank and began to stray. They made their way to the city. There winds blew down empty streets. There were tobacconists and casinos. The souls sought work and got work, got married and had children, gained a footing in public bodies and department stores and built this whole world of uneasiness. But the bodies got all the closer unto God, they blossomed in all the autumn colours, before oblivion finally gathered them in, home to God's mighty pile of leaves.The cigarettesYou see people stroking their cigarettes. With the middle finger's soft inside as if they were small children. As if the people were small children and the cigarettes their little animals. Then comes the little fire and the animals begin to burn in one end, and the people suck them in. Greedily, as they say. Fiercely. Remorselessly. Without mercy.They do it for someone else's sake, or for some other thing's sake. First the little caress. Then the fire. A longing for sacrifice, to give themselves away.To become animals and give away their days.

Don't go outThe problem with our age. People have said: there is no way out. But I say: there are too many ways out. All that is offered is ways out, but no way in. They also say: all the ways out have already been worn out. But I say: Then try to find a way in. Because the way in cannot be worn out. As soon as you have got in you are there. Then you have it around you. Then you may sit by the fire. But when a way out has been tried and you have finally got out, you soon want in again, because there is nothing out there other than absence and cold space. Hence this bitterness, and this disappointment in ways out. Therefore I say: Don't go out. Go in instead. And if the house starts to shake, stay seated. Stay seated with a pretty smile.

Where from?I know that many wonder where it comes from, whether it is from within or without, and if it can run out. Then I believe that it must be from without. You can see that by the hands, how they are held stretched out ready to receive it. The entire being is turned that way with face and all. Inwards nothing is turned, only the back. You don't expect anything from that direction, therefore there is no face there. You can laugh there, but that laugh comes out through the mouth and wants to meet whatever comes from outside, and greet it, and bring it back in. Some people say that we stretch out our hands and that we laugh to give away things that we have, but that's not what I think. I think that we just want to take and take, all the time we want more. I don't think that we have anything. Then they wonder if it can be used up. Then my answer is that it cannot. That much is for sure. It lasts throughout life.